Friday, September 09, 2016

Roland TR-09 vs. TR-909 vs. TR-8

Published on Sep 9, 2016 Bonedo

"Roland TR-09 Boutique Drum-Machine - First impressions and short comparison of the TR-09, the original TR-909 and Roland’s AIRA TR-8 Drum machine."

Turn it up and listen to the clap. It's as if the original TR-909 sounds the most open, followed the the TR-8, followed by the TR-09. The TR-09 sounds the most compressed to my ears in this video. What do you think?

5 comments:

What a shock, the sound gets shittier as you go down the line. The original sounds fuller, you really hear the difference in the snare with the TR-8 with thin shrillness, and the TR-09 sounds more muffled/lower/lo-fi. Does not make me want to buy these emulations. Can we please just get an analog 909 that sounds good?

The reviewer clearly had his output levels mismatched across the units. Take note of the BD level on the TR-8. This was generally a poor comparison despite the fact that all 3 pieces of equipment are playing the same sequence. Failing to match levels in a comparison test results in an invalid result.

If you look at the frame around 20 seconds, you will see that the mixer settings are not the same per channel (at least in the first 3, which are visible). In addition looking at the volume settings per machine, the 09 volumes are maxed in comparison to the rest. However, as more videos are released we will know if it truly sounds that lo-fi.